26 
PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
of Great Britain had, indeed, an interest beyond any record of the kind he had 
heard of in their country, and he was much pleased at the manner in which Mr. 
Andrews had so concisely reviewed the interest of such a discovery, and had so 
appropriately applied referential causes. 
Mr. Montgomery exhibited specimens of the great cinereous shrike (Lanius ex- 
cubitor) and the black-capped warbler (Motacilla atracapilla), both shot by him in 
Beaulieu wood, County Louth. 
J. E. Gray, Esq., of the British Museum, being proposed by Mr. Andrews, 
seconded by Dr. Gordon, was unanimously elected an honorary member. 
The ballot having been announced, Walter Lyndsay, Esq., Rathmines, and 
William Compton Domville, Esq., of Santry House, were duly elected members* 
The Society then adjourned to January. 
JANUARY 13, 1854. 
A meeting of the members was held at their rooms, 212, Great Brunswick-street, 
on Friday evening, the 13th instant, 
Robert Caldwell, Esq., M.R.I.A., in the chair. 
The minutes and preliminary business being disposed of, the following donations 
were announced:— 
Presented by James R. Dombrain, Esq., two handsome specimens, male and 
female, of the red or common squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris), which were shot at Avon- 
more, county of Wicklow; and, by the same gentleman, a specimen of the godwit. 
Mr. Dombrain obtained this bird from a fisherman at the Pigeon-house, who found 
it nearly drowned, having taken one of the hooks. 
Mr. Ffennell observed, that the squirrel was not uncommon in many parts of 
Ireland; at Lough Inagh, in Connemara, it was very numerous. 
Mr. Kinahan presented two specimens of the wood-mouse, or long-tailed field- 
mouse (Mus sylvaticus), male and female; and Mr. R. P. Williams presented a 
specimen of the black scoter duck (Oidemia nigra), shot near Sallins. 
Thanks having been passed to the donors, 
Professor Allman described a remarkable condition which he had observed in 
some of the adventitious roots of a specimen of Jussicea grandiflora , growing in 
the College Botanical Gardens. Some of the roots, which proceed from the nodes 
of the stem, instead of growing downwards, so as to fasten themselves in the mud 
at the bottom of the water in which the plant grows, assume an ascending direction 
and grow into the air, where they present a very singular appearance, looking like 
portions of rush-pith attached to the stem of the plant. When examined by the 
microscope, they are found to have a central, slightly-developed, woody axis, round 
which is a peculiar structure, formed of exceedingly delicate stellate cells, having 
between them large intercellular spaces, and constituting one of the most regular 
and beautiful examples of a system of air-chambers to be found, perhaps, in the 
whole vegetable kingdom. A singular fact connected with these air-chambers is, 
that they are not surrounded by any epidermal investment, but open directly into 
the external air. Professor Allman also mentioned his discovery of a remarkable 
peculiarity of the woody fibres of the same plant, namely, the fact of these fibres 
being filled with starch granules, a condition of prosenchymatous tissue almost 
unique in the vegetable kingdom. 
Mr. Andrews then read the following 
REMARKS ON HARBOUR FISH AND ON THE FORMATION OF PISCINA. 
He said—I had some time since proposed to give a paper with reference to the har¬ 
bour fish of the south-west coast of this country, viz.—of such as were permanent 
residenters in our harbours and estuaries, and of such that visited the harbours dur¬ 
ing the seasons of spawning. I found, however, from my notes, that it would be 
a subject of such magnitude, that the interest and importance would ill be conveyed 
within the limits of a paper which the rales of our evening meetings prescribe. In 
